A/N: Title change because apparently this is a series now.
The Avengers' next diplomatic mission was to Paris. For some reason, they took Tony again.
"I don't even have to pack my CamelBak," he crowed. (There were no open container laws in Paris.)
Their meeting with Macron was uneventful, mostly because Steve and Bucky were the only ones who spoke French. (Natasha spoke two dozen languages, but she conveniently forgot them in the presence of politicians.)
After their meeting, the Avengers visited the Père Lachaise cemetery. It was about one-sixth the size of Central Park, but felt so much bigger, because of the cobblestones, which only seemed quaint until Steve had been walking on them for a few hours.
It was worth it when they finally found Oscar Wilde's grave. A beautiful Art Deco piece, it had once been covered with the lipstick prints from hundreds of literary pilgrims and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Eventually the lipstick began corroding the headstone, so a barrier was erected. Natasha pressed a bright red lipstick print to a napkin from Les Deux Magots and handed it to Bucky. He left it at the base of the grave.
As a kid, Bucky had loved The Picture of Dorian Gray. These days, he mostly read The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Wilde wrote it when he was imprisoned for "gross indecency."
He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.
Clint got pickpocketed on the Métro ("Aw, France, no,") so the next day, they went to the American Embassy for an emergency passport. They woke up early, bought sandwiches from the only boulangerie open, and took the Métro to the Place de la Concorde. The sandwiches were entire loaves of baguette filled with ham, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, and Emmental cheese, all for about four euros. Steve ate his (two) sandwich(es) the way women on TV ate yogurt.
On their way to the embassy, they counted seven police sirens. The Police Nationale were out in force, armed with assault rifles, as they had been since the terrorist attacks in 2015. There was a demonstration outside the Luxor Obelisk. A man was standing on a shipping container, speaking to a crowd through a megaphone. There was a banner on the shipping container that read, "Blé radioactif ukrainien," or "Radioactive Ukrainian Wheat."
After that, the only thing Steve could think about was the (two) sandwich(es) he had eaten for breakfast.
He forget them as soon as they found a doughnut shop near Arts et Métiers. It sold everything from American-style matcha green tea and maple bacon doughnuts to the traditional fare of French pâtisseries. Tony bought an entire box of Paris-Brest pastries. They were made of choux and cream, like an éclair. The only difference was the shape. The Brest was round.
(It was designed to look like a wheel in celebration of a bicycle race between Paris and Brest, but Tony started humming whenever anyone tried to tell him this.)
Steve rolled his eyes at Tony, but he also ate twelve.
The lady at the doughnut shop told them the protest that morning had been over Macron's labor law reforms. Steve still didn't know what that had to do with radioactive Ukrainian wheat, but he and Bucky had already decided to write a comic book about it.
They had been writing comics since Steve's therapist suggested he start making art again. Steve did the drawings and Bucky wrote the stories. Bucky had always been a nerd, dragging them to Stark's expos and The Bride of Frankenstein when they had two dimes to rub together. Most people thought Steve was the nerd because he was small, but Bucky was the one who loved science fiction. Steve was the one who loved punching people in alleys.
They made sure to explore the Rue Saint-Jacques, a street full of comic book stores selling everything from translated Batman to French-Belgian bande dessinées. Thor got several Tintins so he could practice his French. They had lunch at Café Le Quartier Général, a comic-themed brasserie with menus hidden inside comic book covers. It took Bucky a few minutes to find his, because he was used to hiding his comics behind other books, not the other way around. Then he was overwhelmed by the choices, so Clint ordered him Nutella tiramisu.
Steve wanted to draw Bucky eating Nutella tiramisu and mail it to Hydra (along with a Claymore mine and tripwire firing system).
After lunch, they needed either a walk or a defibrillator, so they adopted the flâneur lifestyle, wandering (staggering) along the streets of Paris.
Peter wanted to borrow Vélib' bicycles, which were like Citi Bike, but much more dangerous, even by Steve's standards. Paris traffic seemed to move based more on intuition than laws (of either traffic or physics). Pedestrian traffic was no different, and Clint swore the Walk/Don't Walk signs were maintained to help pickpockets identify tourists. Parisians seemed to have some sort of ancestral knowledge that told them when it was safe to go. It probably came from generations of trying to navigate the Arc de Triomphe roundabout.
Bruce wanted to visit the famous Farmer's Markets, like the Marché Bastille, but they ran out of time. They ate exactly one green thing in Paris and that was a doughnut.
Vision didn't want to do anything in Paris.
Probably not enough serial killers.
Their last stop was the Avengers Station museum exhibit at La Défense that had been reinstated for their visit. The exhibit itself made Steve uncomfortable, which his old costumes, and the alarmingly accurate reconstruction of SHIELD headquarters, but he loved La Défense, even though it was the least old-fashioned part of Paris.
Haussmann's apartment buildings gave way to skyscrapers, convention centers, and corporate headquarters. One of its nicknames was Petit Manhattan. Its construction had received no small amount of criticism (not unlike the Eiffel Tower).
La Défense was also an open-air art gallery. It's name came from its only 19th century sculpture La Défense de Paris by Louis-Ernest Barrias. The other sixty plus sculptures and monuments of La Défense were modern greats such as Miró and Calder alongside lesser-known artists. Building permits in Paris often came with a requirement to fund public art. Steve thought that was pretty swell.
He slung an arm around Bucky's shoulder. "We could retire here, like Oscar Wilde."
Bucky gave him the same look he gave Natasha whenever she "forgot" a language.
"Someday," he amended.
"Someday," Bucky agreed, and together they watched the sun set over La Défense.